media aesthetics contextualism in applied media aesthetics

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Media Aesthetics Contextualism in Applied Media Aesthetics

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Media Aesthetics

Contextualism in Applied Media Aesthetics

Formal Elements

• Light

• Color

• Motion

• Sound

You make aesthetic choices everyday that you don’t even

realize.

What you wear to school

Some things include:

Judging the speed of another car by yours

Simply saying “I know what I like”

• No longer limit aesthetics to traditional understanding of “art”

• It is a formalist analysis

Formalist analysis = understanding what the context is within the art

Say what? . . . .

No… it’s not an abstract concept.

You will use a process to examine a number of media elements and gain your perception of their use

Looking at things like light and picture composition…

How they interact and our own perceptual reactions to them.

First.

Second.

• The media (mainly TV and film) are no longer considered a neutral means of messaging

Third.

• Whereas traditional aesthetics is basically restricted to analysis of existing works of art…

• Applied media aesthetics serves synthesis as well

Fourth.• You employ formative

evaluation

You evaluate the relative communication effectiveness step-by-step while it is in progress

Applied Aesthetics

• Art is part of everyday life; yet is separate from everyday life

It is an experience that is…

• Clarified

• Intensified

• Interpreted

• Looking through the viewfinder of a camera, arranging things on a screen or editing a film all engage you in clarifying, intensifying and interpreting

Helpful concept…

• We focus more on the Form of the message more than its content

Contextual Aesthetics

• What and how we perceive an event is greatly influenced by its context.

Contextual Aesthetics

• Also…

demonstrates connection of major aesthetic fields

Light, space, time/motion and sound.

Contextual Aesthetics

• Organizes variety of aesthetic element in each field to show relationship with one another

Contextual Perception

• We understand art on a basis of contextualistic aesthetics and our own understanding

Contextual Perception includes

Our need to stabilize the environment

Our tendency towards selective perception

The associative process of linking certain elements together in a pattern…. Known as CULTURE

Culture is based on SYMBOLS

• Things that represent something else

Aesthetic context

• The framework in which we have responses to the aesthetic stimuli presented to us

The framework includes our own previous experience of

the world

• This is called associative context; our own code we establish that to some extent dictates how you should interpret what you see

• Associative context is Culture-bound

Context is important…

• We respond to certain stimuli in predictable ways even when we know it’s perceptual manipulation

Good example of this

Optical Illusions

• Because humans respond certain, predictable ways…

• We can predict with reasonable accuracy how people will respond to certain specific aesthetic stimuli in our own art

As a creative artist

• You decide where to place the camera or microphone…

• Therefore the viewers have no choice but to share your point of view

Method: Inductive

• Rather than analyzing existing elements, we seek the 5 fundamental image elements of TV and film

LIGHT

Light

• Visible radiant energy that effects the way the scene is presented by how the viewer sees the light

Light

• Manipulates and articulates the perception of our environment

• Creates specific feeling

Light

• Reveals surfaces

• Creates shadows which help to control perception

Light

• Various formats to consider

–Cast or attached shadows

–The Falloff

–Low key light

–High key light

–Below eye level light

Attached shadow

Can suggest: Relative location or mood

Cast shadow

Can suggest: Locale and Mood

Falloff

• Used to determine

–The brightness contrast between the light and shadow sides of an object

–The rate of change from light to shadow

• Slow- diffused light, little brightness contrast between the two sides and the attached shadows are transparent

Falloff rate of change

Falloff rate of change

• Fast- big contrast between the light and dark sides without levels in between. Typically has dark, attached shadows

Falloff

Fast or slow fall off?

Think about: the shadows and contrast!!

Low-key Lighting

Leaves background and part of the scene predominantly dark

High Key Lighting

Scene has abundance of bright lighting, slow fall-off and a light background

Below Eye-Level

When the light source strikes from the bottom, the shadows are opposite of their expected position

Light

• Use of light can entail setting the mood, creating emotion or suspense, setting the season or time of day, or distinguishing an atmosphere

Structuring the light

• Example of structures:

–Chiaroscuro

–Rembrandt

–Cameo

–Silhouette

–Digital

Chiaroscuro

• Single direction for light source

• Selective lighting

• Low key

• Fast fall off

Chiaroscuro

Rembrandt

• Selective

• Low key

• Fast falloff

• Dark but not black environment

Rembrandt

Cameo

• Directional lights

• Fast falloff

• Figure lit but background is black

Cameo

Silhouette

• Evenly lit background• No shadows but the figures

within the image• No illumination on figures• Seems as though they are

“cut outs”

Silhouette

Digital

• Edge glows

• Created by digital means such as special-effects equipment or computer programs

• Can also be the use of programs to enhance present elements such as contrast or shadows

Digital

• Lighting is the deliberate control of light and shadows to fulfill specific aesthetic objectives relating to outer and inner orientation within the medium

Get out a piece of paper…

• Study the next image, use your notes to describe the use of lighting. Consider things such as the falloff, low or high key use, the structure and shadows.

• Discuss how the director used the aesthetic element of light to create perception in the aesthetic context of the image.

What is the director trying to convey to you? What do you perceive?